GMD Poll: Burzum's Discography Ranked

[Manic Ferocity]

Poll closes on Friday. @TechnicalBarbarity @EspaDa @Mort Divine Reminder: you all voted for this one; please vote in it.



Can you add at least one more album to this?

From the Depths of Darkness

 

[crimsonfloyd]

From the Depths of Darkness

Have you heard any of the synth or post-prison albums?

 

[Manic Ferocity]

I included Belus on my list. Other than that, no.

 

[The Butt]

1. Hvis Lyset Tar Oss
2. Filosofem
3. Burzum
4. Det Som Engang Var
5. Belus
6. Fallen
7. Daudi Baldrs
8. Hliðskjálf
9. Umskiptar
10. The Ways of Yore
11. Sôl austan, Mâni vestan

 

[PrincessHades]

11. Sol austan, mani vestan
10. The Ways of Yore
9. Umpskiptar
8. Belus
7. Hvis lyset tar oss
6. Hlidskjalf
5. Daudi Baldrs
4. Burzum
3. Filosofem
2. Det som engang var
1. Fallen

 

[challenge_everything]

 

[Mort Divine]

1. hvis lyset tar oss
2. filosofem
3. det som engang var
4. s/t
5. belus
6. fallen
7. hlidskjalf

 

[no country for old wainds]

1. hvis lyset tar oss 5/5
2. burzum 4/5
3. filosofem 4/5
4. det som engang var 4/5
5. fallen 4/5
6. belus 3/5
7. hlidskjalf 3/5
8. daudi baldrs 2/5
9. umskiptar 2/5
10. sol austan, mani vestan 1.5/5
11. the ways of yore 1.5/5

 

[crimsonfloyd]

Get any last votes in during the next few hours. I’ll be calculating results tonight.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

#11 Sôl austan, Mâni vestan (2013)

Average points per vote: 1.3/11

Sol austan, mani vestan (this isn't horrible, in all fariness it contains two or three really good tracks)

...Sol austan whatever and Ways of Yore are the most boring ambient horseshit you’ve ever heard.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

#10 The Ways of Yore (2014)

Average points per vote: 2/11

The Ways of Yore-Out of honesty, I will say that I haven't granted this album the respect of a full listen, though the material that I have heard, while quite good, is a fairly significant stray from anything Varg has put out before.

The Ways of Yore- Drags on more than its predecessor. The narration takes away from the overall quality.

 

[PrincessHades]

"have bit" was supposed to be "haven't" in my statement about The Ways of Yore just to clear that up...fucking autocorrect

 

[crimsonfloyd]

#9 Umskiptar (2012)

Average points per vote: 3.4/11

Umskiptar is just long, droning and fucking boring. There's like 2 good songs. And I LOVED Fallen and Belus. Loved the shit out of them.

I find it quite boring. Some songs sound like b-tracks from Belus, and others sound like what you would hear from a kid who just discovered the delay pedal in a Guitar Center. I find some of his transitions to be absolutely amateur as he'll have this huge reverb sound go dead silent without any fading in the middle of a song. Very annoying.

Other than that, it's not a bad album, it's just so "meh".

I like it, don't love it. Conceptually it is interesting and the way it gradually decellerates is interesting. There at least four absolutely killer tracks ( tracks 2, 4, 7). "Golden Age" is really beautiful song. Reminds me of Ulver's Kveldsanger. Some of the songs near the end are a little laborious, but work for me when I'm in the right mood. On the whole I would say better than Fallen, worse than Belus.

I've heard a lot of negative things about it, and if you start listening it expecting black metal, of course you'll be disappointed...
But as for the music itself, it is fantastic, I love it. I love the simplicity, it gives a lot of emphasis to the lyrics. Ancient and beautiful.
My favorite song on the album is either Deities or Elven Dance. They have such a nice folksy fairy-tale-esque vibe to them.
Can't wait for more Burzum albums.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

#8 Dauði Baldrs (1997)

Average points per vote: 4.1/11

First place votes: 1 (CiG)

Daudi fucking baldrs

Whenever I hear that song I imagine a fucking dark castle with torches barely lit... plague spreading from townsperson to townsperson outside. :V

One thing I'd really like to see is the whole Daudi Baldrs album performed by a full symphony orchestra.

Daudi Baldrs is for me the best evidence supporting his ambient mediocrity, when thats the only thing he focuses an album on.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

#7 Hliðskjálf (1999)

Average points per vote: 4.5/11

Hlidskjalf is pretty damn beautiful, I think. Real fucking mellow.

I actually didn't like a whole lot from Hlidskjalf, actually. The latter half just seemed like a random collection of sounds as opposed to songs. Might need to give it more listens, who knows.

I very much feel that Hliðskjálf is under-rated, the album is worth it alone just for "Der Tod Wuotans" - after reading the storyline for this composition, you realise just how creative and imaginative Vikernes really is.

The musical representation of the storyline is incredibly accurate (anyone who has knowledge of war-music from the Renaissance and early Baroque periods would probably understand why I say this). Hearing this song alone raised my opinion of Vikernes as a composer overall. I no longer view him as being confined to a Black Metal artist, rather, simply, someone creative and imaginative.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

#6 Belus (2010)

Average points per vote: 5.1/11

I am finding Belus to be nothing more than average, tbh. It's not bad, it's not great. Nothing really stands out about it at all. Can't say I was truly expecting to be blown away though.

Belus is pretty awsome imo, a few of the songs on it are already classics.

Yeah, I loved Belus. Gave a presentation about it in my Mythology class. Got some weird looks lol.

Let's really get controversial: Belus is the best. It is the only Burzum album without filler.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

#5 Fallen (2011)

Average points per vote: 5.5

First place votes: 2 (HadesRagnazrath, Ozzman)

4. Fallen-Arguably, this album should not fall so high in the list, however it holds a personal significance to me as it played a huge role in my instruction to Burzum and black metal in general. Far more consistent than Belus.

Belus is nothing. It's a boring collection of old songs a few new tracks. Fallen is Varg pushing his new style of black metal to its peak.

Also, anyone who thinks Fallen is better than Belus seriously boggles my mind. Fallen has weak riffs, the compositions don't really flesh out and develop the way good Burzum does (they just sound repetitive), it lacks the atmosphere of Belus and the vocals range from average to irritating.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

#4 Det Som Engang Var (1993)

Average points per vote: 7.23

First place votes: 1/3 (jimmy101)

I recently purchased DSEV and that is the most sinister fucking thing I've heard from Varg. It might become my favorite here soon.

Det Som Engang Var gets kind of boring after Han Som Reiste.

Det Som Engang En Var is definitely an objectively weak album. Half of the tracks are like sketches or interludes, the other half range from poor to merely good. One of the most conceptually sloppy metal albums I know of.

Varg leads the listener on a journey between a world of agony and a world of bliss. The record begins in the depths of darkness ("Key to the Gate") but quickly ascends into ecstatic heights with compositions that gradually build toward cathartic peaks ("En Ring Til Aa Herske") or revel in paganistic wonder ("Lost Wisdom") before descending back into the depths with the foreboding dirge "Snu Mikrokosmos Tegn." Taken as a whole, Det som engang var depicts a profound and magical world from which we have detached, leaving us in a state of longing and despair.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

#3 Burzum (1992)

Average points per vote: 8.2/11

First place votes: 1 (HamburgerBoy)

Most of Varg's albums take one into a specific place in the realm of Burzum, as Varg himself says, they should be seen as spells intended to do this very thing. The debut doesn't seem as focused; it's more of a journey to various places in the Burzum realm, to put it that way.

Burzum (s/t): A bit raw, flying in the face of the death metal standards of the time.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

#2 Filosofem (1996)

Average points per vote: 8.4/11

First place votes: 1 1/3 (Krow, jimmy101)

everything on burzum's filosofem
its depressing and its one of the greatest records of all time.

Filosofem sucks if you are a normal and happy person

Filosofem would be perfect if the ambient track was about 7 minutes shorter

Either, way I enjoy the tone Burzum uses on "Filosofem". The muffled fuzz is totally sinister while keyboards remain ehtreal. Really hypnotic.

3. Filosofem- Filosofem is an expression of Varg’s overarching philosophy. Musically, that philosophy is grounded in the concept of difference and repetition. Progressions slowly, almost unnoticeably, differentiate over extended durations. The listener is lost in a paradoxical middle ground where sound seems to be simultaneously still and morphing. The same concept is expressed through the lyrics and accompanying stories. Filosofem provides a doorway into a paganistic worldview, in which darkness and light are at constant play with one another. While Filosofem is by no means the first black metal album to take up paganistic themes, Varg’s use of repetition is the perfect tool through which to express an ideology that is grounded in the cycles and patterns of nature.

Burzum - Filosofem

Sparse fragments of sub-tonal ambience converge along the nexus of thematic development revealing a preponderance of romantic themes contra the ennui of post-industrial revolution liberal democratic ideologies. Musical ideas edging dangerously close to bouncy, power chord driven rock are superceded by arpeggiated melodic narrative culminating in horizontally developed minimalistic meta-quintessence suggesting a quasi-discourse of themes fully derived out of the metaphysical presuppositions underlying Nordic pagan religious practices. True to form, this is organic nihilistic anti-globalist art.

8.5/10